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I honestly didn't think it would be a controversial opinion. I was merely asking for some insider, foot soldier account. But I'll bite. Let's say you are a bic
by dekervin 5y ago
I honestly didn't think it would be a controversial opinion. I was merely asking for some insider, foot soldier account. But I'll bite.
Let's say you are a bicycle making company and you come up with a completely new form factor for a bicycle, with an innovative design that required a lot of breakthrough in thinking. On monday morning, You go to market .
Then on tuesday morning you just learn that, a hat making company, heretofore friendly with you and that had some small side business painting bicycles, completely turned its line of business upside down to copy your product and make it one of its core line of products.
Are you telling me you wouldn't have some negative feelings? If after toying with that hypothetical situation you still think that you would be unmoved, my guess is you don't know yourself well enough.
But we don't even have to speculate. The CEO of Apple at the time "vowed" to make Google pay for it. He was battling Cancer and still felt exacting that punition was one of the most important thing he had to do before leaving us.[0]
"I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want."[1]
"* will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.*"[1]
[0] https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/how-steve-jobs-felt-betrayed-by-eric-schmidt-over-googles-android/ https://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/how-steve-jobs-felt-betra...
[1] https://www.phonearena.com/news/Steve-Jobs-vowed-revenge-on-Eric-Schmidt-over-Android_id23152 https://www.phonearena.com/news/Steve-Jobs-vowed-revenge-on-...
- gcheong 5y agoSteve Jobs wasn’t the innovator he was the guy trying to keep everything for Apple from a business perspective which you said should be distinguished from the people doing the actual innovative work. Also it’s an understatement to say that Steve could be a bit dramatic more for effect than anything else.
- dekervin 5y agoBoth fair points. But at very least it shows that feeling slighted is within the range of possible reactions. Regarding the original Iphone, once you get to the level of product decisions, it's perfectly legitimate to consider Steve Jobs one of the main innovators. Especially if you consider the decisions of what not to include on the device which was a matter of taste. And Again, Android in its pre-Iphone version is the perfect control group. I think Jobs was in the perfect position to realize how much "creative" work Google was borrowing for free and he felt it was is duty to do something about it whether he was within his rights or not. I am just guessing some of the technical people below him must have felt the same.